Archive | Global Imperial State RSS feed for this section
Richard Falk
Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He initiated this blog partly in celebration of his 80th birthday.
Archives
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
Tags
AKP
anti-Semitism
apartheid
Balfour Declaration
Barack Obama
BDS
Climate change
Cold War
Democracy
diplomacy
Donald Trump
Egypt
Erdogan
European Union
Gaza
Gaza Strip
geopolitics
George W. Bush
Gilad Shalit
Hamas
Hilary Clinton
Hiroshima
Holocaust
Hosni Mubarak
Human rights
International Court of Justice
International Criminal Court
international law
Iran
Iraq
Iraq War
ISIS
Israel
Israel-Palestine
Israel/Palestine
Japan
Jerusalem
Libya
Middle East
militarism
NATO
Netanyahu
New York Times
Nobel Peace Prize
Nuclear disarmament
nuclear weapons
Obama
Palestine
Palestinian people
Palestinian prisoners in Israel
Palestinian territories
peace process
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
revolution
Richard Falk
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Snowden
Soviet Union
Syria
Tel Aviv
Terrorism
Trump
Turkey
UN
United Nations
United Nations Security Council
United States
Vietnam
Vietnam War
war crimes
Washington
West Bank
World War II
Zionism
Recent Posts
Categories
- 'Abnormal' Japan
- 'Fortress World'
- 'Normal' Japan
- 'Operation Protective Edge'
- 'Peace Process'
- 'Voluntary' International Law
- (un)civility
- 13 Demands
- 1915 Genocide
- 1948 War of Independence
- 1967 War
- 9/11 Attacks
- A Quiet Heart
- A remebrance
- Abbas
- Abdullah Gul
- Abraham Center for Middle East Peace
- academic freedom
- acadmic freedom
- accountability
- Adala Urgent Appeal
- Administrative Detention
- Africa
- aggression
- Ahed Tamimi
- Ahmet Davutoğlu
- AKP
- Al Aqsa Mosque
- al-Shayat Airfield
- Alfred Nobel
- Algeria
- Ali Mazrui
- alliance
- Altamont Speedway Concert
- Alternative Facts
- America
- America as republic
- American elections
- American Embassy Seuzure
- American foreign policy
- American presidential campaign
- American presidential election
- American racism
- American Sniper
- AMEXIT
- Amos Oz
- and Opponents
- Anit-BDS Summit
- anit-Semitism
- Anti-colonialism
- anti-Semitism
- anti-Semitism
- Anti-Zionism UN Resolution
- Antonina Zabinski
- apartheid
- Apartheid Convention
- Apology
- Aquino
- Arab Spring
- Armenia
- Armenian community
- Armenian Genocide
- arms control
- arms sales
- Article 9
- aspirational democracy
- asymmetric warfare
- Ataturk
- atomic attacks
- atomic bomb
- Audre Lorde
- Auschwitz
- authoritarianism
- autocracy
- Ayatollah Khomeini
- Ayelet Shaked
- Azopt
- Balfour Declaration
- Ban KI-moon
- BAN Treaty
- Barack Obama
- Bashar el-Assad
- Basher al Assad
- BBC
- BDS
- BDS Campaign
- BDS-Bashing
- Belgium
- Ben Ali Saleh
- Benjiman Netanyahu
- Bernie Sanders
- Berrigan Brothers
- Bibi Netanyahu
- Bill Clinton
- Bill Cosby
- Binali Yildirim
- binary thinking
- Biopolitical Moment
- blog boundaries
- blog civility
- blog comments
- Blog ethics
- Bob Kerrie
- book burning
- BREXIT
- British Mandate
- Brzezinski
- Bush family
- Caeser Group
- Cambodia
- campaign fundraising
- capital punishment
- Capitalism
- Carl Schmitt
- Caterpillar
- Catholicism
- ceasefire
- Chaim Weizman
- charismatic resilience
- Charles Blow
- Charlie Hebdo
- Charlottesville
- Chas Freeman
- Chemical Weapons
- Cherif Chouachi
- Chernobyl
- child prisoners
- China
- CHP
- Christmas
- Christopher Kennedy
- citizen pilgrim
- citizenship
- City of
- citzenship
- civil disobedience
- civil society
- Civil Society Discourse
- civil society tribunals
- civility
- Claudia Rankine
- Clean Break
- Climate Change
- climate denial
- climate justice
- Clinton
- Clinton Defeat
- Clinton's belligerence
- Cold War
- collective punishment
- collective security
- Collective Self-Defense
- Colombia Peace Process
- Colonial Legacies
- colonialism
- Comment Guidelines
- Commentary
- Complexity
- Conservative Republicans
- Constitutional issues
- consumerism
- contextual and configurative analysis
- Copenhagen failure
- Corporate responsibility
- cosmic consciousness
- cosmopolitanism
- Council of Foreign Relations
- counter-terrorism
- Counterinsurgency Tactics
- counterinsurgency warfare
- Counterinsurgency Wars
- Counterrevolution
- counterterrorism
- Coup aftermath
- Coup attempt
- Cour failure
- Craig Hicks
- crime of apartheid
- crime or war
- Crimea
- Crimes against Humanity
- Crimes of State
- Criminal Accountability
- Criminal Law
- Criminality
- Cruz
- Cuban Revolution
- cultural imagination
- cultural war of aggression
- culture of violence
- cyber attacks
- Dan Ellsberg
- Daniel Berrigan
- Daniel Ellsberg
- Daniel Pipes
- Dany Danon
- Dautoglu
- David Krieger
- Davutoglu
- Dayan Jayatilleka
- debate
- decline of democracy
- Defamation
- Defamatory Comments
- demagogue
- demilitarization
- democracy
- democratic elections
- Democratic Paarty
- Democratic Party
- Democratic Party foreign policy
- Demographic Bomb
- denuclearization
- Depolarization
- Derrida
- deterrence
- dialogic humility
- dialogue
- Dieudonne
- digital age
- Digital Etiquette
- Digital Home
- Digital India
- Diploamacy
- diplomacy
- diplomatic initiative
- Diplomatic Protocol
- dipomacy
- disarmament
- discourse
- dispossession
- Donald Trump
- double standards
- Douma CW attack
- drone warfare
- drones
- drug prices
- dystopia
- early Christianity
- Ebrahim Yazdi
- eco-humanism
- eco-insurgency
- eco-politics
- ecological alienation
- Ecological Civilization
- ecological collapse
- Ecological Ethos
- ecological jurisprudence
- ecology
- Economic embargo
- education
- educational reform
- Edward Said
- Edward Snowden
- Effective Control
- Egypt
- Egypt (2011) (2013)
- Electoral College
- electoral politics
- Elizabeth McAlister
- ending apartheid
- ending occupation
- Enlightenment
- environmment
- Eqbal Ahmed
- Erdogan
- ESCWA
- ESCWA Report
- espionage
- Ethics of Apology
- Ethno-nationalist Moment
- ethnocracy
- ethnographhic moment
- Euromed
- Europe
- European statecraft
- European Union
- European Unity
- failed coup
- False Certainty
- False Consciousness
- fanaticism
- fascism
- Father Miguel D'Escoto
- Fethullah Gulen
- FETO
- Fetullah extradition
- Fetullah Gulen
- Fidel
- Fidel Castro
- FIFA
- FIFA and Palestinian Football
- Force-feedomg
- foreign military bases
- forgiveness
- Fouad Ajami
- France and the United States
- Francis Fukuyama
- Fred Skolnik
- Fredrik Heffermehl
- freedom of expression
- Fukashima Daiichi
- Fukushima
- Fulbright Vietnam University
- funding terrrorism
- future generations
- Gandhi
- Gaza
- Gaza
- Gaza occupation
- Gaza oppressi
- General Yair Golan
- genocide
- Genocide Controversy
- Genocide Convention
- Genocide-duty to prevent
- Geoffrey Darnton
- Geopolitic bersus International Law
- geopolitical laws
- Geopolitical Militarism
- geopolitics
- George H.W. Bush
- George McGovern
- George W. Bush
- Germany
- Gerry Spence
- Gideon Levy
- glaucoma
- Global autocracy
- Global Battlefield
- Global Capital
- global citizen
- global domination project
- Global Governance
- Global Imperial State
- global interest
- global justice
- global leadership
- Global presidency
- global risks
- global security
- Global State
- global warming
- Grand Inquisitor
- Grand Strategy
- Guantanamo
- Gujurat
- Gulf Cooperation Council
- Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
- Gulf Crisis
- Gulf Crisis of 2014
- Gulf Monarchies
- gun culture
- hacking
- Haider Eid
- Haim Saban
- Hamas
- Hamas Charter
- Hanan Ashrawi
- harmony with nature
- Harrisburg 7
- hasbara
- hate speech
- HDP
- Health
- Heffermehl
- Henry Kissinger
- Henry L. Stimson
- Henry Paulson
- Hersch Lauterpacht
- Hewlett Packard
- hibakusha
- Hilary Clinton
- Hilary Clinton's foreign policy
- Hillary Clinton
- Hiroshima
- Hirosshima
- History
- Hizmet
- Hizmet movement
- Ho Chi Minh
- Holocaust
- House of Commons vote
- Houthis
- human interest
- human interests
- Human Rights
- Human Rights
- Human Rights Council
- Human Rights Watch
- human security
- humanism
- Hunger Strike
- identity
- imagination
- Imelda Marcos
- Implementation
- impunity
- Incitement to Genocide
- inclusiveness
- indefinite detention
- India
- Indian Wells Tennis Tournament
- Insiders v. Outsiders
- internal displacement
- Internation Law
- International & Global Law
- International Chaos
- International Court of Justice
- International Court of Justice (ICJ)
- International Crimes
- International Criminal Court
- International criminal law
- International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People
- international humanitarian law
- international law
- international law
- international lawyers
- International Liberal Order
- International reputation
- intervention
- interview
- Iran
- Iran (1979)
- Iran diplomacy
- Iran Nuclear Agreement
- Iran nuclear diplomacy
- Iran Nuclear Program
- Iran's nuclear program
- Iranian democracy
- Iraq occupation
- Iraq War
- Ireland
- ISIS
- Islamophobia
- Israel
- Israel elections
- Israel Palestine
- Israel prisons
- Israel's Arms Industry
- Israel's Obligations under IHL
- Israel-Palestine
- Israel/Palestine
- Israel/Palestine
- Israeli 'Democracy'
- Israeli apartheid
- Israeli assassinations
- Israeli Entitlements
- Israeli impunity
- Israeli jurisprudence
- Israeli Law
- Israeli Lobby
- Israeli one-state
- Israeli One-State Solution
- Israeli one-state unilateralism
- Israeli Prisons
- Israeli Security Establishment
- Israeli soul searching
- Israeli war crimes
- Istanbul
- Italy
- Jacob Mchangama
- Jacques Derrida
- James Douglass
- James Zogby
- Japan
- JCPOA
- Jean Bricmont
- Jeff Halper
- Jeremy Hammond
- Jerusalem
- Jerusalem Resolution
- Jerusalem UN Resolution
- Jewish exceptionalism
- Jewish identity
- Jewish Voices for Peace
- jihadism
- Jill Stein
- John Bolton
- John Ikenberry
- John Kasich
- John Kerry
- John Pilger
- Joint Declaration on International Law
- Joint Statement of Opposition
- Jonathan Pollard
- Joseph Nye
- journalistic ethics
- Juan Manuel Santos
- July 15th
- July 15th Coup Attempt
- justice
- Kader Asmal
- Kellyanne Conway
- Kerry Diplomacy
- Khan Sheikhoun
- Kim Jung-un
- Kissinger
- knowledge
- Kosovo
- Kurdish conflict
- Kurdish Issues
- Kurdish movement
- Kurdish struggle
- Kurdish victory
- Kurds
- Kyoto
- Laos
- Law Enforcement
- Lawfare
- Lawfare Project
- leadership
- leadership crisis
- League of Nations
- Legitimacy
- Legitimacy War
- Legitimacy War
- Legitimacy Wars
- liberal
- Liberal Democrats
- Liberal Zionism
- liberalism
- Libya
- Lidia Yuknavitch
- logic of reciprocity
- lost causes
- luxury
- Macron
- Madrid train bombings
- Mahmoud Abbas
- Makarim Wibisono
- Marco Rubio
- Marcos
- Mario Savio
- Marjorie Cohn
- Marsahll Islands nuclear zero litigation
- Martin Niemoller
- Marwan Barghouti
- Max Blumenthal
- Mazin Qumsiyeh
- media
- meditative intelligence
- Mega-Terorism
- megaterrorism
- memoir
- Memories
- Mendlovitz
- Mental Health
- Mexico
- Michael Moore
- Michael Oren
- Michael Walzer
- Middle East
- Middle East Forum
- Middle East geopolitics
- Middle Easy
- Miguel d'Escoto
- Mika Brzezinski
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- militarism
- military intervention
- military technology
- Mira Regev
- Mission for Growth
- Modernity
- Mohammed Omer
- Money
- Moral Revolution
- Morning 'Joe'
- Motorola Solutioons
- Muslim Brotherhood
- Nagasaki
- Nakba
- Nakba as Process
- Naomi Klein
- NAPF
- Narendra Modi
- national interest
- national liberation
- National Review
- National Security
- national security legislation
- nationalism
- NATO
- Nazi period
- Nebraska
- needs based development
- Neoliberal Capitalism
- neoliberalism
- Netanyahu
- netizenship
- New Anti-Semitism
- New Cold War
- new geopolitics
- New Wars
- new world order
- New York Times
- NGOs
- Nicaragua
- Nikki Haley
- no first use
- No Fly Zone (NFZ)
- Nobel Peace Forum
- Nobel Peace Prize
- Nobel Prize
- Non-intervention
- Non-violent Struggle
- nonproliferation
- nonproliferation
- nonproliferation treaty
- Nonviolence
- Nonviolent Resistance
- normative democracy
- North Carolina murders
- North Korea
- north/south divide
- NPT
- NPT Article IV
- nuclear age
- Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
- Nuclear Ban Treaty
- nuclear civil disobeidence
- Nuclear Disarmament
- Nuclear disarmament
- nuclear education
- Nuclear Famine
- nuclear power
- nuclear securitization
- nuclear war
- Nuclear Weapons
- Nuclear Weapons Policy
- nuclearism
- Nuremberg Human Rights Award 2017
- Nuremberg Judegment
- Nuremberg Judgment
- Nuremberg Laws
- Nuremberg Obligation
- Nuremberg Principles
- Nuremburg
- NY Times
- Obama
- Obama on nuclear policy
- Obama's foreign policy
- Obama's Irvine Commencement Address
- Obstacle to Peace
- occupation
- Occupied Palestine
- oil
- Okinawa
- Old City of Jerusalem
- old geopolitics
- Omar Barghouti
- One-Israel-State-Solution
- One-state
- one-state solution
- Open Letter to Trump
- oppression
- Oppressive Occupation
- Oren Ben-Dor
- Orientalism
- Oslo Approach
- Oslo diplomacy
- Oslo Peace Process
- Oslo Process
- Outlaw State
- P-5
- P5
- P5 +1 Agreement
- Pacification
- Palestine
- Palestine
- Palestine Authority
- Palestine Prisoners
- Palestine statehood
- Palestine/Israel
- Palestinian Authority
- Palestinian children prisoners
- Palestinian people
- Palestinian Self-determination
- Palestinian solidarity
- Palestinian statehood
- Palestinians
- Paris 2015
- Paris Agreement
- Paris Attacks
- Paris Climate Change Agreement
- Paris Preamble
- Partition Resolution
- Partition War
- Patriotism
- Paul Raskin
- peace
- Peace and Justice
- peace journalism
- Peace process
- Peace Talks
- Peace Through Diplomacy
- Pearl Harbor
- Pentagon
- Peres Funeral
- Personal Background
- petropolitics
- Philip Berrigan
- Philippines
- Phyllis Bennis
- Pivot away from Middle East
- Pivot to Asia
- PKK
- Plan B: Colonial Retreat
- Plan C: A Just Peace
- Planetary Realism
- PLO
- Plowshares 8
- Poems
- Poetic Wisdom
- Poetry
- poetry & war
- polarization
- Police Brutality
- Police State
- political community
- Political Community?
- Political correctness
- political extremism
- political fundraising
- political leadership
- political style
- political violence
- Politics of Apology
- Politics of Language
- Pope Francis
- Popular Mobilization
- Popular Vote
- populism
- Populist Representation
- Port Huron Statement
- post-colonial colonialism
- Power as Crime
- Pre-Fascism
- Presbyterian Divestment
- President Erdogan
- Presidential Campaign
- Presidential System
- Primary Campaign
- Princeton University
- procedural democracy
- progressive
- Progressive Populism
- Protection of Holy Sites
- Protective Edge
- public intellectual
- Punitive Peace
- Qaddafi
- Qatar
- QGOs
- R2P Diplomacy
- racialized language
- racism
- Radical Humanism
- Rafael Lemkin
- Ralph Nader
- ran
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
- reconciliation
- Reflections
- Reform
- refugee law
- regime change
- regional conflict
- Regional Disengagement
- Religion
- religious counterrevolution
- representation
- republican democracy
- Republican Party
- republicanism
- Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
- Reuven Rivlin
- Revolution
- Richard Falk
- Richard Goldstone
- Richard Haass
- Richard Kemp
- Rima Khalaf
- risk management
- Risky Business
- Robert Faurisson
- Robert Kaplan
- Robert O Paxton
- Robin Nisblett
- Roger Cohen
- Rome
- Ronald Reagan
- Rouhani
- rules of the game
- Russell Tribunal
- Russia
- Russian hacking
- Ryōkan
- Sakamoto
- Salmon Rushdie
- Samer Issawi
- Samuel Huntington
- Sanctions
- Sanders' Revolution
- Santa Barbara Fires
- Sarin Gas
- Saudi Arabia
- Saudi Royal Family
- SC Res. 242
- Scientific Consensus
- Sean MacBride
- Secretary General
- sectarian warfare
- Sectarianism
- Secular one-state
- secular Zionism
- secularism
- security
- Security Council
- Security Council veto
- Security Councull veto
- Selection Process
- self-determination
- Self-reflections
- semantics
- Sepp Blatter
- Serena Williams
- Settlement Outposts
- Settlements
- SHEEL-SHOCKED
- Shimon Peres
- Shinzo Abe
- Shireen Issawi
- Shlomo Sand
- Shooting the Messenger
- Silicon Valley
- Sisi
- Smearing BDS
- social welfare
- South Africa
- South African apartheid
- Special Rapporteur
- Special Rapporteur on Palestine
- Special Relationship
- Special Relationship (Israel)
- Special Relationship (Saudi Arabia)
- Special Relationships
- Species Idenity
- species survival
- Spirituality
- state building
- state system
- state-centric versus earth-centric
- State-centric world
- Stefan Andersson
- Stephen Rappp
- Stephen Zunes
- Steven Salaita
- substantive democracy
- superdelegates
- suppression
- Surveillance
- sustainability
- sustainable peace
- Swedish initiative
- Swedish recognition pledge
- Sykes-Picot
- Sykes-Picot Agreement
- Syria
- Syrian ceasefire
- Syrian Dilemma
- Syrian war crimes
- Tahrir Square
- Ted Cruz
- Temple Mount and Western Wall
- tennis
- TEPCO
- Terrorism
- terrorism
- terrorist
- The Economist
- The Orwellian State
- Third Parties
- Thomas Jefferson
- Three Pillars of American foreign policy
- Timothy Snyder
- Tom Friedman
- torture
- traitor
- Transformational Horizons
- treason
- tribalism
- Trumism
- Trump
- Trump Era
- Trump Foreign Policy
- Trump Presidency
- Trump's demonic worldview
- Trump's geopolitics
- Trump's Inaugural Address
- Trump's worldview
- Trumpism
- Trumpt
- Tsutomu Yamaguchi
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkey
- Turkey-Yemen
- Turkish domestic politics
- Turkish Elections
- Turkish foreign policy
- Turkish leadership
- Turkish November elections
- Twitter tweets
- two-state consensus
- Two-State Solution
- Two-State-Solution
- Two-states
- U.S. Congress
- U.S. Constitution
- U.S. Constitutionalism
- U.S. Foreign Policy
- U.S. Global State
- U.S. Government role
- U.S. State Department
- U.S./Israel Alliance
- UAE
- Ukraine
- UN
- UN 'shame list'
- UN Balance Sheet
- UN Charter
- UN Commission of Inquiry
- UN funding
- UN Human Rights Council
- UN Reform
- UN Secretary General
- UN Security Council
- UN Security Council Veto
- UN veto
- UN Watch
- Uncategorized
- Uncertainty
- underground homes
- UNESCO
- United Nations
- United States
- United States
- United States alliance
- United States Congress
- United States foreign policy
- United States response
- Uniting for Peace Resolution
- Unity Government
- universal jurisdiction
- University of Illinois
- UNSC 2334
- US 'Special Relationships'
- US Congress
- US interference
- US-Israel Special Relationship
- utopianism
- Vanunu
- Versailles Peace Treaty
- Veto Power
- Victors' Justice
- Victory Caucus
- Victory Scenario
- Vietnam
- Vietnam and Palestine
- Vietnam Lessons
- Vietnam War
- Virginia Tilley
- Vision of Prague
- Voluntary Agreement
- Wahabbism
- Wahabism
- Wall Street
- war crimes
- war journalism
- war making
- War on Terror
- war prevention
- Warsaw Ghetto
- Warsaw Zoo
- Wesphalian Model
- West
- West Point
- Westphalia
- Westphalian Representation
- William Schabas
- wisdom
- Women's March
- WOMP
- Woodrow Wilson
- world citizen
- world government
- World Government Research Network
- world order
- World Order Models Project
- World Parliament
- World Politics
- World War I
- World War I diplomacy
- worldview
- Xi Jinping
- Yeats
- Yemen
- Yemen Intervention
- Yenkapi Rally
- Zbigniew Brzezinski
- Zionism
- Zombie Solution
- zoo animals
Education
Newspapers
Advertisements
The Mistakes of the Global Imperial State and the Mistakes of Others
29 MarIt was pointed out to me that the oddities of reconciliation without truth that I encountered in the Philippines with respect to the persisting prominence of the Marcos family despite the widespread discrediting of his period of ruler ship (1965-1986) is not as strange as I made it appear. After all, Jeb Bush has recently announced his intention to seek the presidency of the United States in 2016, and George W. Bush despite his deplorable presidency, is regarded as a political asset, and is actively campaigning and raising funds on behalf of his younger brother. In the Philippines, unlike the United States, there was a political rupture brought about by the People Power Movement that drove the Marcos clan from power and led directly to Corey Aquino becoming president, widow of Benigno Aquino Jr., the slain Marcos opponent. Even now this populist triumph is celebrated as a day of national pride for the country, and Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III sits in the Malacañang Palace as the elected leader of the country. Yet the political realities in the Philippines, as with America, are more notable for their continuities with their discredited past than by changes that repudiate and overcome it.
Barack Obama was acting in an admittedly different political setting in the United States when he put aside well grounded allegations of criminality directed at the leadership during the Bush presidency, prudently contending that the country should look forward not backward when it comes to criminal accountability of its former political leaders. Of course, this is the opposite of what was done with surviving German and Japanese leaders after World War II at the widely heralded Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, nor can such prudence ever become the norm in the United States in relation to the crimes of ordinary people, even the laudable whistleblowing crimes of the sort attributed to Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden. Such selective impunity seems to be the price that imperial democracies pay for avoiding civil strife at home, and preferable to the unity associated with authoritarian forms of governance.
For this reason alone, Obama’s morally regressive approach to accountability is politically understandable and prudent. America is polarized, and the most alienated and angry segment of the citizenry embraces the gun culture and likely remains ardently supportive of the sort of militarism and patriotic fervor that had been so strongly in evidence during the Bush presidency.
Thoughts along these lines led me a broader set of reflections. The mistakes that the Philippines makes, however horrifying from the perspectives of human rights, are at least largely confined to the territorial limits of the country and victimize its own citizenry. By way of comparison, the foreign policy mistakes that the United States mainly vicitimize others, although they often do at the same time impose heavy costs on the most marginal and vulnerable of Americans. As a society, many regret the impacts of the Vietnam War or the Iraq War on the serenity and self-esteem of American society, but as Americans we rarely, if ever, pause to lament the immense losses inflicted on societal experience of those living within such distant battlefields of geopolitical ambition. These victim societies are passive recipients of this destructive experience, rarely possessing the capability or even the political will to strike back. Such is the one-sidedness of imperial relationships.
An estimated 1.6 to 3.8 million Vietnamese died during the Vietnam War as compared to 58, 000 Americans, and similar casualty ratios are present in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, without even considering the disruption and devastation experienced. In Iraq since 2003 it is estimated that between 600,000 and 1 million Iraqis were killed, and over 2 million were internally displaced and another 500,000 Iraqis became refugees as a result of the war, while the United States lost in the vicinity of 4,500 combat personnel. Battlefield statistics should not blind us to the absoluteness of each death from the perspective of loved ones, but they do reveal a central dimension of the distribution of the relative human costs of war as between an intervening government and the target society. This calculus of combat death does begin to tell the story of the devastation of a foreign society, or the residual dangers that can materialize in death and maiming injuries long after the guns are silent from lethal unexploded ordinance that litters the countryside for generations, soil contamination by Agent Orange, and warheads containing depleted uranium, as well as a legacy of trauma and many daily reminders of war memories in the shape of devastated landscapes and destroyed landmarks of cultural heritage.
From almost any ethical standpoint it would seem that some conception of international responsibility should restrain the use of force in situations other than those authorized by international law. But that’s not the way the world works. The mistakes and wrongdoing that takes place in a distant foreign war is rarely acknowledged, and never punished or restitution offered. Perversely, it is only the territorial leaders that are held to account (e.g. Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, and Muammar Qaddafi). The United States Government, specifically the Pentagon, makes it a point to tell the world that it does not collect data on civilian casualties associated with its international military operations. In part, there is an attitude of denial, minimizing the ordeals inflicted on foreign countries, and in part there is the salve of an underlying official insistence that the U.S. makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties. In the context of drone warfare, Washington insists that there are very few civilian victims, as measured by the number of deaths, but never admits that a far larger number of civilians huddle in continuous acute fear that they may be targeted or unintentionally struck dead by an errant missile.
Given the statist and imperial structures of world order, it is not surprising that there is so little attention to such issues. The mistakes of an imperial global state have material reverberations far beyond their borders while the mistakes of normal state resound inwardly as in an echo chamber. The wrongs of those who act for the imperial global state are shielded from scrutiny by realistic notions of impunity, while the wrongs of those who act for a normal state are increasingly subject to international procedures of accountability. When this happened after World War II it was called ‘victors’ justice; when it happens now, especially with the one-eyed jurisprudence of ‘liberal legality’ it is explained by reference to prudence and realism, being practical, doing what it is possible, accepting limits, giving a fair trial to those who are accused, deterring some patterns of evil deeds.
This will not change unless either of two things come to pass: a global capability to interpret and implement international criminal law comes into being or the political consciousness of imperial global states is dramatically altered by the internalization of an ethos of responsibility toward foreign societies and their inhabitants. Any description of such advances in law and justice should make us aware of how utopian such expectations remain.
At present, there is only one global imperial state, the United States of America. Some suggest that China’s economic prowess creates a rival center of power and influence that should be acknowledged as a second global imperial state. This seems misleading. China may be more resilient, and is certainly less militarist in its conception of security and pursuit of its interests, but it is not global, nor does it fight wars distant from its homeland. Furthermore, Chinese language, currency, and culture do not enjoy the global reach of English, the U.S. dollar, and franchise capitalism. Undoubtedly, China is currently is arguably the most significant state in the world, but its reality is in keeping with core Westphalian ideas of territorial sovereignty, while the United States operates globally in all regions to solidify its status as the only global imperial state, indeed the first such state in the history of the world.
Tags: Aquino, George W. Bush, imperial state, international criminal law, Jeb Bush, Marcos, Philippines, United States